Loom
by Borath
Summary: The war is finally over, but the act that brought about peace is a festering wound that threatens to tear the Autobots apart.  Cont. from 'Quits' but can stand alone.  Established Optimus/Ironhide; mentioned Optimus/Megatron.
1. Chapter 1

_This follows on from 'Quits' and is set a year later, though it can be read as a stand-alone. _

_I've written a lot of rape-recovery fiction in the past, but this time I'm going to focus on those around the victim and how they've been affected. A lot of this is still going to be about Optimus, but the majority will be Ironhide, Ratchet and Lennox based. _

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_Loom

_Chapter 1_

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"So. That's a spaceship, huh?"

Ironhide grunted an affirmative from beside Lennox, his own optics turned up to the night sky, though the soldier could see further. He held up a device much like a complex set of binoculars to his face, fixed on the ship lurking overhead at the edge of the planet's atmosphere.

The mech shifted, canons flexing in a relaxed, inconspicuous stretch. They were sat outside the briefing hanger where a bot used to stand sentry all night, though with the war over that duty had been foregone. "The Ark. Primus knows how it got here in one piece even with the war being over."

Lennox lowered the bulky equipment that Wheeljack had loaned him, rubbing his eyes to adjust. "Who's controlling it?"

Noting that the man was done, Ironhide opened a compartment in his shin for the binoculars to be put back. "No one," he replied as Lennox took a beer from the cooler stashed inside. "The AI is reasonable, though. Smart enough to pick up Optimus's message and figure to hone in on him. It's his ship."

"Not too shabby," Lennox remarked with a wry smile, levering the bottle top off on the edge of an armour plate. They had these quiet meetings two or three times a week now, and both knew the habits and rituals involved. As he began to drink, Ironhide retrieved a cube of High Grade from a side compartment and popped the seal.

They stood in mutually comfortable silence for several minutes, considering the stars. This contemplative quiet was a staple of their meetings, as if company alone was enough for Ironhide. Lennox gave the dark mech a sidelong glance, trying to assess his mood from his posture and the brightness of his optics, but there was nothing telling. It was very rarely that he saw raw emotion showing in his guardian, and the last time had led him to believe that there was a Cybertronian equivalent to crying.

It had been a 'bad' week – that was how Ironhide had surmised a bout of fluxing without going into the details with him. He'd drunk more that evening, a lot more, and growled at Lennox that what his sparkmate had had done to him was like someone putting a machete into his wife. That description still haunted him, as did the mech's bowed head and narrowed optics that bled only a watery light.

Since then he'd been wary to ask the question that always came up during their meetings, and tonight was no different. The words came softly, summoned with all the care given them in the past. "How's he doing, Ironhide?"

The dark mech gave no outward sign of being affected by the question, though there was a note in his voice that couldn't be completely displaced. Though all of the facts lay as shared knowledge between them, the grievances and fears, to bring up the subject felt like inviting strife every time they spoke. Yet it had to be spoken of, just as it had to be lived with. "Not bad. Recharging better."

Lennox stared down the neck of the bottle, though blankly. "Still not talking about it?"

A shrug by way of one shoulder twitching. "Don't reckon we ever will." He looked down as a soldier with another soldier. "You know how it is."

Lennox did, and it didn't need to be vocalised. There were things that had happened in the forces that he would never tell Sarah about – not because they were confidential, but because they were awful. Awful things happened in conflicts, and no less than an awful thing had ended the Cybertronian's war. The submission and defilement of one leader by another, personal costs extracted in place of lives. A high price for peace that only a handful knew the true cost of.

The human was pulled from his reverie by the shunts and scrapes that accompanied Ironhide sitting, falling still with one hand draped across his thigh. The High Grade lingered beneath his chin and his optics were on the sky, hesitating before he actually took a sip. With a shunt through his vents, he voiced his thoughts to the dark. "He needs to get away for a bit. This little expedition couldn't have come at a better time."

Lennox coughed a laugh. "I don't think the first time humans set foot on an inhabited alien world classes as a 'little expedition.'"

A sideways smirked from the scarred mech. "Says you."

The idea had been proposed two months ago, when a communication had been received from the Ark's AI that it was approaching on Prime's general summons. To say that the arrival of a space-faring species' ship, particularly now that the Cybertronian civil war was over, had triggered excitement was an understatement. As a gesture of gratitude for the asylum granted over the last four years, it was agreed that the Autobots would escort a group of scientists into inhabited space – to Certa, specifically. The logistics of selection from across the globe had been a nightmarish undertaking, with the final word coming from Optimus himself. Suffice to say, the Autobot leader had rarely been seen in recent weeks. Thankfully, this first visit was for reconnaissance and largely comprised of NEST personnel.

"So," Lennox began as a means of breaking the silence that had fallen. "Tell me about this planet we're going to."

There was a soft crunch of hydraulics as Ironhide shifted, taking another sip of High Grade. Clinical details had already been given in briefings, describing Certa as greatly similar to Earth, and he sensed that the soldier was inviting a more personal inflection. "The deserts are bigger with hard winds, but there's this mist from the mountains that comes down sometimes. Colonies are mostly around the jungles, or they were when we were there a few centuries back." To the human's expression, he grinned. "What? You ain't got the monopoly on sentient alien planets we've visited."

Reminding himself of the enormous time scales they were dealing with, Lennox considered the stars again. "Did the war take you there, as well? Decepticons?"

Ironhide shook his head. "Nah. They got invaded by a harvesting colony – resources stripped, folk killed. Called for help and asked us to clear 'em out. Don't usually get involved in other peoples' fights, but it was an alien force and they weren't so much as fighting as grinding the locals into slag. Me, Optimus and a couple of others sorted it out."

Lennox drained the last foaming trickle from the bottle and set it aside. The dark mech had already reopened the hatch to the cooler for him to take another. "So it'll be a warm welcome."

His own drink gone, Ironhide produced the second and penultimate cube. "That was more than a couple of generations back. Probably forgotten all about it by now. But they're a peaceful lot. Good bunch of organics for you to cut your teeth on."

Nursing the cool beer, Lennox scrubbed his hair and tried to imagine what these aliens would look like. Unwittingly, his mind kept circling the rumoured 'greys' and stereotyped 'little green men'. Finally, he gave up and simple asked: "What do they look like?"

When Ironhide paused with narrowed optics, Lennox lowered the bottle to his lap, studying the mech in profile. "'Hide?"

Optics shuttering in a blink, Ironhide glanced to the human before looking to the horizon. One hand ghosted across the nape of his neck in a gesture that Lennox knew full well he'd picked up from Optimus.

"Ratch' was gonna explain this later," he murmured, optics shuttering again in an expression that signalled he was about to say something he ought not to. "So, uh, just look surprised for me, alright Will?"

He didn't suppress his intrigued grin, sensing from the mech's tone and posture that this wasn't a grim disclosure. "Course."

Ironhide look him over again before speaking to the cube. "When we said they were humanoid, we meant that they really have a bit of human in them. Used to be a group who liked moving primitive folk around, setting up colonies on other worlds and seeing what happened. They've evolved differently on Certa, but you've got the same ancestors."

"Holy shit." It took a moment for Lennox to overcome his initial shock, brows raised and bottle forgotten in his hand. "And no one else knows about this yet?"

Ironhide shifted a shoulder as he drained the cube, twirling it between his thumbs when it was empty. "Optimus and Ratchet weren't gonna tell you at all at first. Figured that squishy alien life was gonna be enough to keep your scientists happy and busy enough. But the Certa looked a lot like humans when we were there, so it probably wouldn't have been long before you started asking questions."

The soldier nodded, understanding the logic and oddly grateful on his species' behalf that they were going to be upfront and honest. "And they look a lot like us? Like the aliens out of Star Trek?"

A few seconds as Ironhide referenced that and thought before he smirked a little. "Throw in a grasshopper and you're about there."

Lennox barked a laugh at that, gaze tipping back up to the area of sky where he knew the Ark was waiting. It couldn't land without alerting millions who didn't yet know about the Cybertronian's existence, likely triggering global hysteria. It was cloaked above the planet, however, disguised from the hundreds of satellites that could see it. The binoculars that Wheeljack had made could only see the ship through a synchronicity that Lennox hadn't even tried to understand.

To get to the Ark, they were to experience another first – travel by spacebridge. A weaker version of the ones that could cross galaxies, the device had taken eight months to build and was due entirely to Wheeljack and Starscream's expertise and tentative collaboration. It had been built in the mountains some several hundred miles away, safe from discovery and powered by the diffused energy from a dormant underground magma chamber.

As he was finishing the beer, Lennox heard a soft creak from the mech's comm., and Ironhide tipped his head down in that way that Lennox knew meant he was talking to Optimus. The hatch slid open, silently inviting him to take the drink cooler out before Ironhide sealed it again.

"Meeting's over?" he asked when the blue optics regained their normal brightness.

Ironhide grunted an affirmative, getting to his feet. "Galloway wanted to call it a night and go home."

"Figures."

"Not a bad idea," Ironhide went on. "Got a long drive up to that volcano tomorrow."

"Yeah, about that," Lennox began with a frown, also standing. "Why aren't we just flying up?"

"Ratchet's call," he replied simply, noting from Lennox's soft nod that he didn't need to elaborate further to convey that the decision was about Optimus. Though stable and balanced in all conscious respects, the occasional fluxes and flashbacks triggered by events a year ago remained dramatic and dangerous. The last place Ratchet and Ironhide had wanted the mech to be was trapped in a confined place with a dozen humans, strapped down or not.

Shifting his feet a little, making to leave, Ironhide touched the hatch where the last cube of High Grade was stored. "Gonna grab a few cubes from the refec and hit the berth. See you tomorrow, Will."

Lennox nodded a little, giving the old mech a half smile. These talks often left a strange feeling in his gut, and this evening had been no different. "G'night Ironhide."

* * *

Disappointed more than anything else at finding their berth empty, Ironhide had taken his cube on a short walk through the Base and over the outside rise where his sensors told him he could find Optimus. Ironically, he had to set up a larger training area after they had adjusted to being at peace as more of the warriors became restless, needing to fall into old moves and sequences to purge the nervous energy from their systems. Optimus, Ratchet and Prowl had been the only ones not to partake of the mountains of car tyres, old scaffolding cranes and automated defence turrets that he'd erected, dangerous enough to keep even the hardened human soldiers away. It was what had him pause at the spectator zone atop the rise, watching the slim mech before setting the empty cube by a tree and making his way down.

Optimus was throwing lead tomahawks into a solid wall of tyres, retrieving them all back only when the pile of fifteen were protruding from the melted rubber to start again. They were imitations of his own energon-heated axe in size and weight that the weapons specialist had made, enabling him to refine his skills at throwing without having to continually retrieve the genuine article or melt any infrastructure.

Not that his abilities needed to be further honed. Each blade struck and sunk exactly where he aimed it with little effort on his part. His movements were tight and controlled, but directed by idleness as his mind insisted on being elsewhere. Ironhide had seen this state before and stood parallel to the throwing range, watching his sparkmate with folded arms until he was noticed.

To the dark mech's surprise Optimus looked vaguely embarrassed, turning the oversized axe in his hands with a scrutiny that suggested he just didn't want to meet his optics. "Redundant, I know, but…"

"Yeah, I get ya," Ironhide replied softly, waiting a beat before nodding to the target for the mech to carry on. He hoped that having his energy diverted and his hands busy would help his sparkmate to talk, as it had in the past for him. "Why ain't you recharging? What's on your processor?"

The slim mech hesitated and turned to throw the axe, optics narrowing as he forced his focus back on to the target. It struck a few inches wide and Optimus shook his head a little. "I'm just awake."

Ironhide cycled a heated sigh through his vents, scrutinizing the mech in profile. It wasn't often that Optimus allowed him to look at him so openly, and he suddenly understood why. His servos were a few nanoseconds sluggish, underpowered, and it looked like his protoform had shrunk fractionally from underfueling. Apparently more had been hidden from him than he'd thought, and the discovery of his sparkmate's self-neglect brought forth a fresh, caustic wave of frustrated guilt.

He took a step forward, hesitated on the second until he ultimately discarded the idea of allowing Optimus to be physically distracted. Standing to the side, he touched a hand between sharp shoulders and felt as much as heard his voice soften. "Optimus… please, just talk to me. I don't ask you to often, but I need you to right now." The slim mech met his gaze, optics tight and wary. "What's going on?"

Sensing that Ironhide wasn't going to let it go tonight, Optimus sagged on his pistons and let his stare fall to the ground between their feet. "This planet's too small," he admitted at last, lifting his gaze to the other's to see, to hope that he understood. "Anywhere we go, the constellations, the air: everything's the same."

A low rumble and Ironhide nodded, looking up at the familiar stars for a moment to take the pressure of his stare away. "I know what you mean. It'll be good visiting Certa just for the change of scenery."

"Just to get away," came the soft agreement, exhaustion evident.

Ironhide nodded and brought his hand back to his side. "Fluxing again?"

Optimus shrugged fractionally, knowing that there was no point in hiding it. If anything he was glad that Ironhide hadn't confronted him in their berth on the three occasions when he had fluxed this week. "The changes Ratchet made haven't helped. There're too many stimuli trigging it."

"You mean like the stars?" the dark mech offered, though he sensed that there was an awful lot more than that causing harm. He felt guilt and frustration swam across the bond and sent back a balm of love and reassurance. Promises that he wouldn't leave, wouldn't stop loving no matter what was said.

Though bolstered, Optimus' eventual reply was soft and dragged from his vocaliser as a shameful confession. "The Autobots." He squeezed the training axe, twisting it in his hand to feel its familiar weight. "It warms my spark to see them at peace after so long, but…"

Pain registered on Ironhide's feature for a scant second, the longest he would ever allow it to show. All he could do was be strong and supportive, and he had vowed to himself to do well by both. "It's okay to resent us, Optimus. After what Megatron did to you-"

"I don't resent you," Optimus cut in, optics shuttering. His dentals clenched behind the mask when he tried to go on, and he threw his frustration into the axe as he sent it flying into the tyre wall. Empty handed, he rubbed the ache that had blossomed over his spark and forced the words out with as much force as he could muster. "It's just… I don't know what I am. I don't know what I'm doing."

The admission wasn't one that Ironhide had expected, and lost for words he could only cup a hand against the mech's elbow. "It's only been a year."

Optimus shunted out a bitter sound, thick with disbelief. He met Ironhide's optics again, studying his reactions. "I thought more would have changed."

Now it was Ironhide who bowed his head, mouth setting in a thin, hard line as he thought of what he could say to that. No words of reassurance were forthcoming, and neither of them indulged in pity. Finally, he just decided to ask: "Is there anything I-"

Smiling at the earnestness, the need to help, Optimus ran his fingertips across Ironhide's knuckle where they curved about his arm. "No, it's me. You've been everything I've needed, 'hide. It's just me."

Ironhide waited, knowing that there was more and knowing better than to push for it.

"I nearly tore Sideswipe's head off yesterday," Optimus confessed in a heavy rush, jerking his chin towards a cluster of industrial pipes and scorched cement blocks. "Just over there, actually."

An arched brow, surprise by the sudden confession quickly displaced by relief. Ironhide hadn't been supervising that particular session and had heard little about the skirmish – largely the Twins relaying that 'the Boss hasn't lost his touch'. "So that's what that was."

Optimus spoke moving towards the target wall, leaving Ironhide behind. "He offered a spar, and Primus knows I need to get back to it with someone other than you."

Watching, Ironhide folded his arms as a means to keep his cannons quietly in check though his tone relayed the same unforgiving protectiveness. "He hurt you?"

The taller mech glanced back, optics bright before he gave a half smile behind the mask and shook his head. "No. I just, wasn't ready."

It was a slim distinction, but it put Sideswipe out of danger. "What happened?"

A beat as Optimus pulled a tomahawk from the wall, pinching a chunk of rubber off the blade before putting it into his fist where a collection was gathering. "It was fine at first. Normal. Challenging."

Ironhide rumbled a little at that, his feelings mixed. Though there was no need for it, combat training was a habit that few of them would ever break and the easiest way to pass time recently. There wasn't much he could do for Optimus now in terms of tuition, and for practice he needed bots who specialised in getting close and hard. It was the best training for him, but it necessitated a proximity that he was surprised his sparkmate had allowed with anyone other than himself or Ratchet.

"He's a better match for you than I am in terms of close-range fighting," he ultimately reasoned, encouraging him to go on to see where this went.

"I was quickly reminded of that," Optimus agreed with a furrowed brow, pulling the last of the axes free. "He didn't go easy."

"He didn't have reason to," came the quiet assertion, with a shadow of disapproval of the secrecy that was still surrounding what had happened last year. The Autobots were being kept at arm's length because of what their Commander had done to end the war, for them. He was surprised that it had taken this long for someone to overstep the invisible mark and get hurt. "What'd he do?"

"Hooked me with a blade, tried to twist me down." He said it matter-of-factly as he walked back, adjusting the axes in his hand to line up the bases.

As he walked, Ironhide saw the clean line running up the mech's left leg, from the inside of knee, up his inner thigh to hook against his groin. Hooking and twisting was a standard manoeuvre for bringing a taller opponent down from the ground. It was a move they'd spent a lot of time on defending against given how long Optimus's legs were, and how comparatively high his centre of gravity was.

Lennox had commented once whilst watching a spar that the manoeuvre was low, needing to be reminded that the groin meant as much to them as their shoulders or pedes. Their most intimate parts were buried under armour in their chassis, almost impossible to make contact with during a fight. However that line up Optimus's thigh, and the plates where the blade caught to gain leverage, wasn't physically meaningless anymore. Ironhide waited, knowing somehow that this was information that had to be volunteered.

"It was, familiar," Optimus began slowly, the thunderous cadence of his voice softened by uncertainty as he thought back and tried to pick apart what had happened in those few seconds. "I saw things in the move that weren't there. Felt things." Remorseful anger curled in and brought strength to his voice. "Before I could stop it, Sideswipe was down and I had his helm in my hands."

Ironhide was quick to step, not touching but using proximity to ward off the blame-filled contrition before it spiralled out of control. "He's alright, Optimus."

The assurance felt too much like unearned forgiveness to his audios, and Optimus gave the mech a hard glance. "He looked so fragging scared."

No doubt, Ironhide reasoned, though kept his expression neutral. "Yeah, but nothing happened."

"He knew something was wrong," Optimus went on quickly, following the critical tangent his processor was racing off upon. He took one of the axes back into his throwing hand, squeezing enough to distort the metal. "I've never reacted like that before. Never that savage."

Professional instinct moved the specialist's feet to step back and out of the way of the axe. "You can't be in control all the time," he reminded, though also for is own benefit. Ratchet had told him more than once that this wasn't something to be overcome within their own private sphere, and certainly not quickly. "This thing's bigger than you. Bigger than us."

"It shouldn't be," Optimus snapped, punctuating the explosion by lunging the axe into the wall. His optics narrowed, targeting sensors coming fully to the fore, and he spoke through a stream of data from his combat CPU as he threw lashed every axe into the wall. "Less than two hours, 'Hide. That was all. Out of millennia of fighting and watching thousands of comrades die. Being captured and tortured dozens of times, and seeing the same done to the Autobots. Primus, dying here. How can I be so untouched by all that, but two hours of…" He trailed off because he'd run out of axes and now stood stiff-backed with fists trembling, lost as to what to do with this raw pulse of feeling.

Ironhide wasn't good with what Lennox had aptly titled 'the mushy stuff', and though in the back of his processor he knew he should be consoling his sparkmate that coddling wasn't in him. And it wouldn't do any good. He was frustrated and angry – at Megatron, himself and a little at Optimus for being so flippant about the severity of ordeal that had strained them both and their relationship to breaking point. When he spoke, it was a barked growl.

"Because they ain't the same, and you can't deal with them the same. All of that's left marks, but you've grown with them. They don't bother you because you've expected them, prepared for them and made peace with them." His cannons unlocked and had spun out before he'd realised what had happened, and it eased the venom out of his tirade. "What that bastard did was summut else. Monstrous. It's not something you're gonna shrug off."

"I was handling it," Optimus bit back, one hand jerking towards the Base. "It was under control."

"No it weren't - you just couldn't see it." Ironhide shuttered his optics momentarily and unclenched his fists, forcing a slow cycle through his vents. Though this wasn't one of their more heated arguments, neither of them needed it. Blame and anger weren't really what was going on here – Ratchet had told him that there would always be guilt and hurt at the base, and that he more than Optimus would likely be the first to remember that.

The pause had stopped Optimus as well, allowed him to enforce some calm on his systems, and Ironhide waited until the thrum of the Peterbuilt's engine had normalised before running a hand across his optics. He felt exhausted and very, very old. Gesturing for the other to follow, he moved towards the target wall and sat down against its Base, resting his wrists on his raised knees. "This crackup's been coming for a while."

Likely true, Optimus conceded as he sat alongside, close enough for their arms to touch. He considered Ironhide in profile, optics softening at the love and weariness that edged every facial plate. "And you didn't say anything? No intervention from Ratchet?"

Helm resting against the wall, Ironhide turned to meet the azure gaze directly. "Figured you needed the release."

Drawing up one of his legs, Optimus rested his elbow on his knee and pressed his fingers against the space between his optics. "I can't afford it. Someone could see."

"Would that be so bad?"

A frown and Optimus drew his helm back, narrowing his stare on the dark mech. "How can you even ask that?"

Ironhide didn't rise to the tone, mouth quirking in a grimace as he laid a hand on a pale shoulder instead. "This secrecy is doing more harm to you than good, Optimus. It's protecting the mechs, but it's killing you. You can't be yourself. You can't retreat off for a few hours when you need to; can't have that personal space you need when someone's crowding ya and triggering off a flux." He shook his head, fingers tightening around the thick plates in a spasm. "Can't have a fragging emotion outside our berth. You're hurtin', but it'll be someone else who puts you in more pain because they just don't know."

Optimus arched a brow, optics a grade dimmer and his voice turning dry and coarse. "I fragged the leader of the Decepticons on his own ship. I'd warrant no respect if they found out."

Ironhide put an arm around his sparkmate and pulled him into his chassis, leaving him no choice in the matter. He sighed when Optimus went with it willingly, resting his chin on his helm. "You saved lives and stopped a war that was driving us to extinction by allowing yourself to be tortured. That's all that was. Torture."

It was easier to speak with seeing his face, but Optimus's tone was still laced with bitterness. "I overloaded for him, 'Hide."

"For me," Ironhide reminded flatly, arm tightening again. "Not him. For me because that's what it cost to stop, and I wish to Primus every day that you hadn't had to. That none of it had had to happen."

Optimus stroked an old scar in comfort, his spark aching with fresh guilt for what he had been putting the older mech through. "I brought it on myself."

That was the crux of it in the Prime's mind, and Ironhide feared that they'd never get through it. But instead of making the same denials that they both knew were true and valid though slow on their way to being believed, he gave an exaggerated sigh. "Yes, because you're a self-sacrificing glitch who loves others more than any sense of self-preservation. And I love you for it as much as I hate you for it. You aint' tainted, but you've never looked after yourself as much as I've wanted you to."

Ironhide's spark throbbed close and comforting, promising everything that he'd said as unfettered truth. Optimus felt a ghost of a smile at Ironhide's rough but deep caring. "I'd say the same about you."

A short rumble, midway between a snort and a grunt. "Damn right." Ironhide moved his arm to allow Optimus to sit up again, relieved to see that he had been at least partially unburdened. Optimus rarely spoke this candidly about what had happened, but each time he felt that it made invaluable progress.

With Ironhide watching him, Optimus rubbed a hand across the lines in his neck that had begun to stiffen with tension. "So what now?"

"We go to berth," Ironhide pronounced decidedly, pushing up to his feet and offering his hand down for Optimus to do the same. Across the bond they could feel one another's weariness, enhanced by the kind of emotional exchange that always left their sparks drained. "Got a long drive to the 'bridge later. Then we go to Certa and see if the grass is any greener."

Ascending the rise with a shorter stride to keep pace with Ironhide, Optimus couldn't quite keep the resignation out of his voice. "It won't be."

"No," Ironhide replied lightly, offering a small smile to the other mech. "But you could do with the break, and all this will still be waiting for us when we get back."

"Joy," Optimus murmured dryly, though he felt bolstered once again by Ironhide's ongoing use of 'we'. No matter how hard he pushed, Ironhide wasn't going to leave him alone with this, and he was as grateful as he was sometimes frustrated for it. They continued the walk down to the darkened Base in silence having said all that needed to be said for the night.

* * *

_More of a placeholder, I know, but I've been needing some encouragement as of late so I thought I'd drop in the line and see what kind of response it got. Any and all reviews are much appreciated, particularly as I've left this story a lot of room to grow and develop organically. _

_I hope you've enjoyed the introduction to this story. The next chapter is well underway and has a few things coming to a violent boil_


	2. Chapter 2

_Rating salient for part of the italicised section of this chapter. _

* * *

Loom

_Chapter 2_

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In dry, clear weather with a cool breeze and warm roads, the day of travelling had been relaxing to them all. Bumblebee led the way with Sam and Mikaela, fishtailing at gleefully random intervals when the stretches of empty highway reached into dozens of miles at a time. Though the scout's exuberance had Ratchet mentally rolling his optics, the warmth of vicarious joviality was worming its way into his spark. It felt good to just drive in weather such as this, in a peaceful convoy without any risk of ambush. His sensors told him that the time was proving beneficial to humans and Cybertronian's alike. Optimus had been quiet for most of the morning, but he'd soon become coaxed into some of the the sports conversations.

Lennox was reclined inside Ironhide's cab and joining in on the collective radio chatter, occasionally breaking off to speak to the NEST officers travelling behind them. The plan had been to pull over at nightfall to allow the humans to sleep, and provide the four hours that Ratchet had ordered for the mechs to rest.

"I'm surprised Optimus fought so hard to have the kids come along," the soldier commented through a grin as the yellow Camero launched off a negligible rise at the side of the road, eliciting peals of laughter that he imagined he could almost hear.

Enjoying the speed and mood, Ironhide eased back a little to come alongside Ratchet, subsequently giving Bumblebee more room. "They've honoured themselves fighting alongside us, at enormous risk. They're honorary Autobots in his optics, and have every right to go on a field trip like this." An engine grunt as the scout deliberately spun out, waiting until the cloud of dust he'd kicked up settled before tearing back on to the road to catch up. "And it keeps the youngling happy. It'll be nice for him to see Certa with his charges."

Taking full advantage of a vehicle that preferred to drive itself, Lennox reclined in the seat and pulled the rim of his cap further over his sunglasses. "You make it sound like a holiday camp."

Ironhide's wipers twitched, not quite rising but flexing off the glass of his windshield. "This is more of a vacation than a military operation. Certa's about as inoffensive as it gets, or it was when we were last there. Perfect place for a break. Optimus needs the change of scenery and your scientists need some new mud in a tube to go ballistic over."

The human scoffed a laugh but conceded the point. Alien mechanical life was one thing, but organic was another. He was excited himself to see how much they had in common after centuries of evolving apart, and doubtless the scientists were even more anxious to get there than him.

His mind was dually occupied, however, and the rest came to the fore when his gaze drifted to the rear view mirror and the Peterbuilt keeping pace behind. "How was he last night?"

The sound of Ironhide's engine remained the same, his tone frank. "Throwing axes into a wall." A beat as he weighed up how much to disclose, before he finally added, "we had a talk."

Lennox waited a few seconds before his brows rose, speaking towards the illuminated radio display. "And?"

Ironhide hesitated again. Lennox knew everything about what had happened, and had a better notion of his own state of mind than Ratchet did. There were no secrets left to protect, and he knew right down to the grooves in his bearings that Lennox could be told anything and be trusted with that knowledge. Yet for all that, he still didn't like talking like this without at least two cubes of High Grade in his systems, so he settled for replying: "It was a good talk."

Ratchet's voice spat through the radio with no warning, the tremor of static behind it signalling it to be an open Autobot channel. "What in Primus's name is that stupid youngling doing with those humans?" To underline his point, Bumblebee executed another mini-jump from a roadside rise to land swerving on the asphalt.

To Lennox's surprise, Optimus's voice immediately came through in answer. "The boy intends to propose soon. Bumblebee is… enthusiastically supportive."

Ironhide did a quick search to acquire the specifics of that before huffing audibly down the line. "'Bee, the kid ain't gonna ask with you skidding around like an overcharged Vespa."

With immediacy that Lennox couldn't help but laugh at, Bumblebee straightened up and matched his speed to the rest of the convoy. The Topkick's engine grumbled around him. "Better."

Taking the water canteen from the passenger footwell, Lennox took a lukewarm sip and watched through the back window of the Camero. In dark shapes he could just make out Sam putting an arm about Mikaela's shoulders in the neighbouring seat. Do you guys have anything like proposals and engagement rings?"

"Not particularly. There's less ceremony in bonding for us," Ironhide replied after a pause. "How did it take place for yourself and Sarah?" It wasn't the type of question he'd have ever considered asking a year ago, but their friendship had developed to far more personal depths. It had been an inevitable and terrible kind of necessity.

Screwing the canteen lid back on, Lennox answered with warmth reflected in his smile. "Traditionally, by human standards. Dinner, dancing. I took her back to where we had our first date. She was my fiancé before dessert. Got pregnant just after our honeymoon and I was posted four months after that."

He remembered how that post had ended quite vividly – Scorponok, and downhill from there. Throughout the adrenaline-charged danger and the reality-defying strangeness of the alien race they'd just discovered, he'd thought of his daughter and was grateful that her mother was his wife.

"I wanted to make the commitment before I left, y'know?" he finally added, privately suspecting that Ironhide had had a similar experience.

The pitch of the Topkick's engine flexed with Ironhide's murmur of agreement. "I do. I asked Optimus to bond with me on the aircraft carrier, though we'd have to wait a few weeks for him to recover enough to do it."

Lennox frowned a little as he remembered those days on the ship, everyone trapped in the same twilight state after saving the world. They had all seen the Prime's body, and Sam had seen him fall. The urge to want him kept sat or lying down, still and safe and under their watch, had been both overwhelming and ridiculous. Optimus was a legendary warrior amongst his own people and didn't remotely need cosseting.

Ratchet had, though, with lingering disbelief that the gaping wound through the mech's chassis was slowly closing. Lennox had put that attention down to simple medical duty. Bumblebee had also hovered nearby when he wasn't with Sam, but that felt like youthful anxiety and love. Ironhide, however, hadn't moved from Optimus's side from loading to unloading. Sam and Mikaela had suspected with him that that was down to guilt from his Commander being slain alone and outnumbered in the forest. There had been no telling emotion in the mech's features, however. His solid presence alone conveyed that he would not be moved. When Lennox had learnt that they were involved, the vigil made sense. He'd been seeing it all over again this year.

"You told me," the soldier began, hesitating with an awareness that he was referring back to that dark week, "that when one bot dies, their sparkmate dies with them." He left the question hang unspoken, and Ironhide was quick to pick it up.

"That is true. But a bond will also support one another's sparks and enable them to endure greater hardships." A beat passed before he confessed: "And it was unbearable for the time he was gone. When he came back, I couldn't waste it. I wanted everything, to give and to have, for however long Primus sees fit to give us, and for us to follow one another back into the Well of Sparks."

Lennox breathed a soft sound of admiration, humbled by the implications of such a bond. The thought of that kind of dependency on a partner for thousands of years unsettled him to contemplate, and only made his chest ache more about the weekly conversations they'd had. "You said about enduring, how the bond lets one spark support another. Do you think..?" There wasn't an end to that sentence, and none was needed.

"Ratch' said that if we hadn't been bonded, that the spark sickness could well have poisoned his systems."

A nod at the quick, flat reply, and Lennox found himself watching the Peterbuilt's impressive grill in the rear-view mirror. With it in mind that Ironhide had already been having a tough week, he force the start of a smile. "Well, with the war over I think you guys can look forward to a few millennia of bond…ed…ness." No response, so Lennox placed a hand on the wheel and nodded to the Camero in front. "So. Do you reckon we can get a tux' big enough so 'Bee can be best man?"

Inside the private space of his alt form with the soldier, Ironhide couldn't help but laugh long and hard.

* * *

The convoy drove on for another two hours and the light waned. Bumblebee, as the scout, had pulled ahead and was scanning the coming miles for a suitable camp site for the night. It needed to accommodate the soldiers as well as provide them cover to transform – too long spent in their alt forms could cause strain, though they could recharge in them fine.

There was, however, a third criteria in the scout's processor for the rest point, and it was wholly about the couple in his front seats. He had been scanning for waterfalls, flocks of white doves and aesthetically pleasing floral swathes: perfect backdrops for a human proposal, though none of which seemed to exist within the vicinity. He persevered, though, because this was a momentous event within his charge's life that he wished to witness, partially because he'd already helped in advising Sam on the most appropriate engagement ring. Compiling the specifics of Mikaela's existing jewellery to distil her taste against his budget, the mech had made quick work of searching internationally for the perfect piece. The ring had been in some variation of Sam's pocket for almost a month now, and aware of how preciously short their life spans were, Bumblebee was keen for the humans to get on with it.

Inside the Camero, Sam had already figured out what Bumblebee was doing when he'd replied to inquiries that he hadn't found anywhere 'suitable' to spend the night yet. His patience was further thinning, despite genuine appreciation for his guardian's help and enthusiasm, because if the mech played one more Bryan Adam's song he was likely to bail out.

"'Bee, we've been sitting in here for going on seven hours," he blurted, almost shouting to be heard over the chorus of another ballad. "We need to pull over and get some sleep."

"I'm looking," came the peevish reply through the radio. "It has to be right."

Sam rolled his eyes and slumped his head back against the seat. He'd had a suspicion that the mech was going to be like this, but he hadn't realized he'd be quite this terrible. Being millions of years old had set up an expectation of maturity, but then Bumblebee was comparable to his age in terms of Cybertronian aging. "Everyone's tired, so just find something –nearly- right and we'll set up camp for the night."

Mikaela spoke over the grumbling whine from the Camero that spoke of grudging assent. "Can't wait for that – my back feels like Ironhide stepped on it."

Bumblebee considered that pensively as his scanners picked out a suitable spot in the woods and transmitted the co-ordinates to the convoy. An uncomfortable femme was typically an unhappy femme, and less amenable to situations where bonding proposals could arise. That would certainly not do, he decided.

"You can sleep in Prime's cabin."

A pause as the teens exchanged a look, sorely tempted by the notion of a mattress for the night though wary to impose. "Are you sure he wouldn't mind?"

"I don't see why. He has sheltered a human overnight at least nineteen times, by my count, and he's told us that we should all see it as an extension of guardianship. You'd have more room than in anyone else's vehicle forms." Their speed declined as he reached the turning off; a wide dirt road leading towards a distant crop of trees. "Except for Ratchet, I suppose, but you wouldn't want to recharge with him. His manifolds rattle."

Sam frowned. "His… what?"

Despite herself, Mikaela was grinning. "He means he snores, Sam."

A smirk and he coughed a laugh, naturally drawn to the side mirror and the reflection of the medic behind the Peterbuilt. "I find that strangely awesome to know."

* * *

_There was no need to stand sentry over the humans whilst they slept, but old habits died hard. Optimus shifted his weight again after another pointless sensor sweep, his systems quieted in stealth mode so as not to disturb his charges. The only notable occurrence was Ironhide making his way uphill through the trees, away from the campsite where Bumblebee and Ratchet remained in light recharge by the tents. The tall mech didn't react to the approach, didn't stir at the wash of gentle concern that had become almost ever-present in their bond during the last year._

_:Thought you're be recharging with how you've been buzzing lately: Ironhide murmured through the bond as he came to stand alongside, seeming to take in the view without really seeing it. :You've put Prowl to shame with fretting.:_

_Optimus glanced to him at the remark, optics narrowed with bemusement. :I do not fret. I'm… cautiously meticulous.:_

_Shunting vents conveyed a chuckle and Ironhide put a hand to his sparkmate's backstrut. From experience, he knew where to press and with what pressure to realign miscellaneous small parts and ease off overly taut lines. He smiled at the sigh he drew out. :Reckon I could make you relax enough to recharge.:_

_Arching a brow, Optimus forced his facial shield to retract to expose the wry smile on his scarred mouth. :I hardly think now is an appropriate time for what you're suggesting.:_

_A low engine purr and Ironhide pressed his fingers deeper, setting the tips to vibrate against the areas of protoform he could reach. When the mech's optics shuttered with a soft hiss, he grinned. :In a forest, under the stars, with folk close by so you've gotta fight to keep quiet? Seems like a perfect setup to me.:_

_As the skilled touches became bolder, Optimus found himself sorely tempted by the offer of illicit intimacy. Living for millennia and fighting for most of it thinned out opportunities for mischief (unless is was a processing flaw, as in the Twins). Now the war was firmly over, they were relatively secluded, and trying to overload in complete silence so as not to get caught had an appealingly erotic challenge to it. _

_And they didn't do this enough anymore, Optimus added to himself with a prickle of guilt. It wasn't a lack of desire at being somehow 'tainted' by events a year ago, nor fear on his part because of the same. The bond prevented secrets, and their exposed mutual hesitance was rooted in caution. Ironhide didn't want to risk pushing unwanted attention, and Optimus didn't want to upset his sparkmate with the underlying unease that still, after months, persisted._

_The only thing they could do, however, was to keep trying. It would get easier. Decided, Optimus forced the lingering anxieties aside for the sake of this spontaneous romance and initiated the first long kiss, allowing Ironhide to pull him close for the second._

_A devilish grin flickered across the dark mech's features as he drew back, stepping behind the slim mech and nodding for them to walk. He led them forwards into a thicker cluster of trees where they would be secluded, their footfalls as quiet as they could manage on the ground. Ironhide stopped them by wrapping an arm around the red and blue chassis, his fingers slotting into the central seam of the armour plates._

_Optimus sagged at the play of his sparkmate's energy field, manipulated through his fingers, and leaned back into the broad body. Before this went further, though, he felt the need to say what he'd been thinking about for most of the day. :Forgive me, 'Hide, for how I've been recently.:_

_Ironhide rumbled reassurance, pulling him closer and holding him in place with fierce strength. :If you think you need to make it up to me, I ain't gonna stop you.:_

_Apology unnecessary but accepted, Optimus translated with a smile. :And what would you have of me, love?: he asked, smiling through the term of affection that he rarely said but was often called._

_Dark hands tightened and pulled to close the last inches of space between them, hips flush to one another. :Compliance: Ironhide purred through the bond. :Submission, to let me make you feel what I feel.:_

_The words sent a cold, abrupt lance through his spark but Optimus dismissed the feeling. This was his sparkmate, his lover, a mech as devoted to him as he was in turn. And this wasn't much to ask. He tipped his head back silently, bearing the exposed part of his throat in a traditional gesture of acquiescence. _

_Ironhide didn't guide them to the ground or turn the other mech to face him. Instead, he pushed his hand deeper towards the Prime's spark in his chassis, teasing a finial with his other hand. They rocked together, Optimus wanting more than this limiting position would allow and Ironhide physically refusing. _

_:Quiet, remember: Ironhide reminded with a low rev, his hand stroking down the sensitive structure to rest around the mech's throat. The suppressed groan could be felt as much as heard when he sent microfilaments from his fingers to grasp and directly stimulate the neural lines he found._

_Optimus's chassis opened wider, welcoming Ironhide's knowing touches that were making it increasingly difficult to keep his hands at his sides. Heat and pressure built, the silence almost as torturous as the swelling need to be turned and brought spark to spark in blissful overload. After several minutes of torture he was on the verge of asking, but restrained himself with the reiteration that this was Ironhide's desire. His want to orchestrate and be responsible for pleasure, even though he seemed to be depriving himself of his own._

_The heat in his chassis flickered when he heard a foreign sound of metal moving, a transformation in the dark mech that he didn't recognize. Then all pleasure turned suddenly cold when he felt a sharp pressure at his groin between the juncture of his thighs. His sensors reported the monstrous and savage dimensions. The bladed shaft and serrations wrapped in sensor nodes were all the same. _

_:'Hide: he started, making to step away but finding himself trapped by the vice-like hands about his throat and inside his chassis._

_Ironhide's feet were planted wide for stability, rooting them both firmly to the spot. :I'll go gentle, I promise.:_

_Optimus hissed through his vents in disbelief tinged with alarm. The bond prickled from his end, but his sparkmate was calm as night. :Ironhide-:_

_:Been dying to try this with ya for months.:_

_The pressure increased, a sharp point sliding against the tarnished spot where the metal had 'scarred'. Optimus felt his strength drain downwards through his legs and into the ground. His processer was fogged, energon racing throughout his systems. :You never said: he murmured, shuttering his optics as he tried to think._

_The blade bit in, breaching open the first few centimetres of metal with much to follow. :Still got weak seams on the welds. Bet you'll just buckle and come apart around me.:_

_The taller mech jerked, hard, but couldn't move either of them at all. Ironhide felt suddenly stronger than he'd ever known. Unstoppably powerful. Mounting panic snapped him completely from the bond with a shout. "Ironhide, stop this now."_

_Ironhide forced his body forwards at the demand, the bellow of pain underlining the squeal of metal and cabling torn rapidly apart as endless inches of blade were forced inside. Optimus buckled, optics white with shock and pain, crippled beneath the dark mech's penetrating weight. Ironhide pulled at his neck to bend his back strut and hiss straight into his audio._

"_What? You'll get fucked to stop a war but you won't do it for your sparkmate?"_

* * *

Sam had been dreaming about earthquakes when a tinny rattle drew him from sleep, curled up in the Peterbilt's sleeper cabin against Mikaela's back. A flashlight flicked up to his face, effectively blinding him before he could hold up a hand against it. The beam against his eyelids had been what had awoken him the rest of the way. "What the hell?" he mumbled, voice thick with sleep.

From the open doorway Lennox lowered the torch with white knuckles. To his side and visible through the windscreen, Ironhide was knelt at the front of the truck's grill, hands hovering over the engine housing and ready to pin it down. Though it was only a precaution, the fact that it was even necessary put a cold sweat down Lennox's back.

The truck shook again, a brief but violent shudder that woke Mikaela and brought Sam's alarmed gaze back to the soldier. Lennox raised his hands as if calming an animal, voice hushed and serious. "Sam, you and Mikaela need to get out of the cab as quickly and quietly as you can."

Sam nodded, bewildered but knowing full well not to question that tone and to just act. Mikaela sat up beside him, eyes widening when she saw Lennox and Ironhide's crouched, waiting form. "What's going on?" She whispered, urgent but instinctively sensing a need for quiet. "Is everything okay?"

Optimus shook again.

With a mounting sense of urgency, Lennox didn't answer but beckoned them out with sharp motions. However, as soon as Sam's socked feet pressed into the bare metal floor, an internal and unidentified pressure to the fluxing mech, Optimus jerked more violently. Ironhide swore and slammed his hands onto the truck, bearing down with his full weight to stop the mech from twisting and transforming. The teens didn't need Lennox's shouted order to get out, hurtling from the misshapen cab with only seconds to spare before it crushed in on itself, parts folding and shifting as the violent transformation began.

Disorientated and flux-panicked, Optimus was fighting off the assailant restraining him before his transformation had reached halfway. Ironhide rolled and staggered with him, determined not to let the disturbed mech fully transform with so many vulnerable humans close to them. Jerked out of recharge by the commotion, Bumblebee moved to put himself between Sam, Mikaela and Lennox, radio sounding a confused and alarmed tone. Ratchet stood between them and the camped NEST soldiers, ready to step in if things got out of hand but knowing that Ironhide had handled the aftermath of these fluxes on his own before.

Ironhide grunted as the truck wrenched against him again, and pressed against his chassis he saw the grill begin to collapse back. "I can't hold 'im," he warned, optics snapping up to find the medic. "You need to wake him up."

The severity of the words were not lessened by their low and terse delivery, and Ratchet felt a pang that the dark mech had become used to responding to this. His sensors flared in sharp, flickering beams, and the results tightened his features. "It's not a flux – he's awake," he called back over the sound of transformation as Ironhide finally lost his grip.

Optimus tended to come up from one knee when he switched into his bipedal mode, but now he surged forward and into the other mech whilst his parts were still whining and snapping together. Ironhide bit down his dismay at finding his sparkmate coherent enough to fight this well. Coming around from the occasional flux, Optimus's movements had been slurred from recharge. Now he was fighting with all the power and finesse of his lifestyle, underscored by a desperate rage that made his optics blaze and engine roar. When he drew his axe, Bumblebee locked his own weapons by reflex, optics bright and wide.

Lennox put himself between the teens and the Autobots, keeping them back with one arm whilst watching in horror as Optimus went into his sparkmate mercilessly. "This is a nightmare," he breathed, his voice caught between an accusation and a plea.

The axe swung up in a vicious arc, the blade hot enough to singe moisture in the air, and Ironhide had to pitch himself sideways to avoid being cleaved. Optimus tracked him half a step before seeing Ratchet, now coming in close to his other side to drive him back. Throwing the axe in a near-miss, he'd drawn his swords before the blade had crashed through the trees.

* * *

_It was dark, even with night vision. It was dark and he hurt and Ironhide was still trying to pin him and hurt him further. An audience this time – Ratchet to take his own part in the parody of affection; the youngest mech and the last he'd ever want to know of this act; and the humans that his time on Megatron's berth had saved. Here to watch, now, as he was torn apart again._

_Millennia of war fought without significant advance as a soldier because that's what he was, over in a day when he became a whore._

_This is how I got you peace._

_Aren't you proud?_

* * *

"Bumblebee, get behind him," Ratchet shouted as he deflected the flat of the blade with his forearm, following the motion when Optimus continued forward to grab his chassis. Ironhide crashed against the other side as Bumblebee moved into place, forcing the tall mech back and down over the yellow mech's body.

On the ground it was easier to restrain him, though only by applying force through holds that the older mechs knew weren't helping. When Ironhide clambered atop him to clutch his helm, Optimus's voice came as a black snarl. "Don't fragging touch me."

Shuttering his optics at the words, Ironhide marshalled himself in the same instance that he leapt to trust Ratchet to protect him. Locking his legs against slim hips, he ignored Ratchet trying to pin the mech's arms and pressed their chassis flush. It was a fight to part his chest plates a scant few centimetres with his programming screaming the risk of vulnerability. Yet through its own closed chassis, quite isolated from the panic that had consumed him, Optimus's spark felt its mate and reached back. It was enough to push their bond to the forefront, allowing Ironhide's pulses of love, calm and reassurance to break through the maelstrom.

Optimus stilled, vents gasping and optics wide. The lights flared, sharpened, and finally focussed on him.

Ironhide waited for almost a minute until he was certain, and then: "Hey love." Resealing the narrow gap in his chassis, Ironhide pushed himself up a little so that they were no longer adjoined. He ran a hand across the mech's helm, his touch light and assuring. "You're alright. Everyone's alright."

Optimus shifted, feeling the earth twist against his body and heated swords retract. Awake. Safe. Another flux – of course it was. Ironhide would never...

"Oh Primus," he murmured, faceplates drawing together as his optics shuttered. He could hear Sam and Mikaela, closeby and concerned. Ratchet and Lennox were silent. Bumblebee droned a low warble he wasn't aware of making. The NEST soldiers didn't know what to do.

Withdrawing, Ironhide took the mech's elbow and helped to pull him onto his feet. Azure optics slid away from his, though he could feel the younger human's stares on them. Lennox was deflecting their interference for him. At present, he couldn't care less. Mouth pulled in a concerned grimace, he nodded towards the woodland and took a half step. "Come on. We'll walk it off."

Ratchet straightened with a nod before pointing sharply at Bumblebee, and the humans by association. "You stay here," he instructed flatly, leaving no time for protest before he stepped after the rapidly retreating mechs into the woods.

Bumblebee waited for one minute before slipping into stealth mode and beginning to track after the other bots. Sam jogged to catch up with him, calling up from his ankle. "Where're you going, 'Bee?"

The mech glanced down at him through the battle mask, optics hard with light. "To scout." There was an alien note of finality in his voice that broached no protest.

* * *

_Any kind of review would be muchly appreciated, thank you.  
_


	3. Chapter 3

Loom

_Chapter 3_

* * *

Anxiety and bewilderment had quickly been displaced by anger in Bumblebee's mind, and he strode into the woods with the stealth of his profession but at a speed the humans couldn't match. He couldn't conceive a reason for Prime to glitch so violently, but what was far more disturbing was the reaction of the other mechs. Ironhide had been dismayed, not surprised, and Ratchet's composure seemed to indicate that he'd been expecting it. The older bots had known something was wrong, whatever it was, but hadn't warned anyone and had still brought Prime with them.

His charges had been scant seconds from being crushed to death, their fragile bodies torn apart and pulverized inside the heart of the Peterbuilt's transformation sequence. And no reason had been given. It was unacceptable.

The mechs clearly did not want their conversation to be heard, retreating over a quarter of a mile into the forest. None were suppressing their energy signatures to hide, though, trusting the order for Bumblebee and the others to stay at the clearing. That, perhaps, was what was making it worse: the ongoing secrecy and the adamant refusal to give an explanation.

Bumblebee paused for long minutes when the mechs did, lowering himself with dimmed optics into the bracken. Prime was pacing. Ironhide wanted to go further. Ratchet sounded taut and wearied. They continued on, and Bumblebee was still struggling to understand.

Prime could have been sick, afflicted with something that caused him to glitch seriously but that wasn't contagious. Only he himself the threat. It hadn't been a flux as, after transforming, he had definitely been online. Whatever it was, though, it was too dangerous to keep everyone in the dark about and subsequently at risk.

Lennox, Sam and Mikaela had caught up in the time the mech had spent waiting, and Bumblebee acquiesced to their pace for the last hundred yards. The soldier came to stand at the crouching scout's hip, eyes narrow on the three visible through the spaces between the thick trees. He'd not intended to spy on them, and it had gone against his better judgement to follow Sam and Mikaela after Bumblebee into the woods, leaving Ratchet with the other soldiers. Now, he was stunned to find that none of them had detected them when they were so close.

He had mixed feelings about Sam and Mikaela being here. Bumblebee was another matter, though from the set of his battle mask the mech was just as rattled at the turn of events as him. The teens had almost been killed. If Ironhide had not managed to pin Optimus for those vital few seconds, they definitely would have been.

This had been partially Optimus's fault for consenting the humans into his cab, though he wasn't sure how cogent the mech had been when they got inside. He could have already been in recharge by then, Lennox conceded, which turfed the blame to Ratchet and Ironhide for allowing it. Someone was at fault because this had been wholly avoidable. Sam and Mikaela should not be now crouched alongside him, alabaster white, wide-eyed and looking for answers.

Regaining himself, Lennox closed his eyes and pushed his fingertips against the lids. This was Megatron's fault. All of it. What was important now was to deal with what they had been left with. A glance to the three with him confirmed in his gut that secrecy was no longer acceptable. With that in mind, he led them closer so that they could hear.

* * *

Optimus couldn't stop moving, lines and micro-components twitching noisily beneath his plates as he paced, trying to think. His optics were bright and narrowed, one hand hovering between covering his face and punching something. "This can't go on, 'Hide. I can't keep doing this. Primus, I nearly killed them."

Ratchet and Ironhide stood a few paces off, close but granting space. The medic looked between the two pained mechs, arms folded and shoulders sagging with what felt like an accumulating weight. What had just transpired had been his worst fear since this had all started – that the lingering trauma from the attack would put a human at risk. Being grimly prepared hadn't made it easier, though. For any of them. "I think we should consider taking you off duty for a while."

The tall mech turned on his as if shot, finally standing still. "No – absolutely not. I only returned to full duty eight months ago, and I gained nothing from being off of it. None of the… difficulties have been related to my role."

Ironhide shook his head, stepped forwards between the two mechs to break the tension before it could mount. "He's right. It's all been off-duty or outside like this."

Ratchet tipped his head back a little, thoughtful. "Then is it perhaps time to tell the Autobots something, or at least consider it."

Optimus's hand slashed through the air in a forbidding stroke that conveyed as much conviction as his voice. "No. They can't know. They don't need to know."

"Ironhide?"

The dark mech looked between them both before his optics settled on Optimus, his gaze almost apologetic. "I think they can take it. Fragger's long gone now, so near enough no chance of them finding him and nullifying the treaty. It won't change anything."

Emotional hackles raised, Optimus turned to face them fully. "It would change everything."

In the face of such raw feeling, Ironhide bowed his head. Ratchet did not hesitate to pick up the slack, his tone both reassuring earnest. "They wouldn't judge you. If anything it would humble them, and make-"

"I agreed to being Megatron's whore," Optimus snapped with a sharp gesture, "that is not beyond judgement."

Ironhide shook his head forcefully. "You sacrificed yourself."

"You're still their Prime. Our Prime," Ratchet went on, optics brightening with frustrated dismay.

"No, I'm not," Optimus replied in low, tight tones that seemed to be boiling up from somewhere deep in his chassis. "I'm more damaged parts than your Prime, to you. A victim, and you're keeping me as one." This was the crux of the problem in his mind – the forbiddance to cast what had happened aside and move on. It felt as though those terrible few hours were now to define him in the minds of those who knew, who treated him with a concern akin to fear and seemed to have no faith in his ever being 'normal' again.

Ratchet raised his hands fractionally, palms down and fingers splayed. This was getting out of control. "You were hurt, are hurting and probably will keep hurting to some degree until you offline."

He was not the mech he was, Optimus concluded with a hard shunt through his vents. Would never be again. Though he knew in his spark that Ratchet and Ironhide were acting out of care and concern, a small part of him found himself resenting their insistence of returning to that event, and to wanting to make it public. With what had happened tonight, however, perhaps he had lost the luxury of keeping this a secret. It was a lot to think on.

"I'll meet you at the 'bridge," he uttered at last, his voice softening with weary resignation.

The plates of Ironhide's face pulled together, pained. "Optimus-"

"Please, Ironhide," his sparkmate asked, optics softening and conveying this need. "I need to think on this."

It was Ratchet who permitted it with a short nod, one hand moving out to touch Ironhide's chassis when the dark mech stepped to follow. That Optimus was going to give this serious thought was enough, and it was his way to try to work through emotional grievances alone. This was one of the few times when he would allow it.

When they detected the energy spike of a transformation sequence before the low rumble of a truck's engine pulling away, Ironhide folded his arms and shuttered his optics. "What do I do, Ratch'? What am I supposed to do?"

"It's not a question of 'doing' anything," Ratchet replied softly, laying a hand on the mech's shoulder and squeezing lightly. "This isn't something you can fight, just as it isn't something I can fix. All you can do is be strong and handle him as best you can."

Ironhide's mouth pulled in a grimace and he shook his head, looking to the space in the trees where Optimus had last been visible. "He's right. He's not the mech he was."

"That, I'm grieved to say, was inevitable."

A pause as Ironhide considered his words and shifted his weight, optics drifting to stare at the marred ground where his sparkmate had paced. "Sometimes, most of the time, he acts like nothing's happened."

"But you're watching for it. Waiting," Ratchet finished, concluding the terrible statement softly.

"All the slagging time."

Ratchet took his hand from Ironhide's shoulder and brushed his jaw, his fist resting between his jaw and chassis thoughtfully. "Then maybe we have been keeping him as a victim."

It felt like a truth, and yet an awful thing to hear aloud. "Primus."

"We should trust his strength and move on as he wants us to: with him." He waited for the dark mech to meet his optics before going on. "But we must still be vigilant. This will not end with a single moment."

"Only a hundred terrible ones," Ironhide agreed quietly, his hands dropping into fists at his sides. It was a conscious will to relax them.

Ratchet waited until the other mech had composed himself before nodding towards the trees. Ironhide needed more time to calm himself enough to go back to the campsite, and taking a long way back to where the others were waiting would provide that opportunity. "Come on. There's no reason to wait until daybreak to follow."

Ironhide made a low sound of agreement, also wanting to give Optimus a degree of space but not to allow him fully out of sensor range. They would give him a head start, some solitude to think, but they would not abandon him even at his request.

As the medic moved into the trees, Ironhide heard something wet snap underfoot and turned hard optics to the bracken, bringing his sensors to bear. Bumblebee was retreating quietly with the human teens, but Lennox was crouched at the edge of the clearing.

He didn't move when Ironhide took a step forwards, and mindful of Ratchet the dark mech could only point sharply back the way they had come. Fury clenched at his spark, only adding to the anger that had been building out of love, fear and helplessness. This feeling, at least, had a focus he could take it out upon.

* * *

The air inside Ironhide's cab was actually hot from the mech's rage, and Lennox could feel the prickling tension in every feature of the transformed Autobot. Bumblebee, Mikaela and Sam didn't know that Ironhide knew that they'd been there, and that somehow made this situation worse. Ratchet was leading the NEXT convoy several miles back, and the soldier was rather wishing that they'd catch up after his guardian had growled off ahead. Silence had reigned aside from the engine since leaving the site, and when Ironhide spoke Lennox actually found himself jerking.

"You betrayed my trust," the radio spat with gravel. "You betrayed –me-."

Lennox rubbed a hand across his jaw, quashing the recurring thought that Ironhide could easily throw him out at this speed by opening the door, retracting the seatbelt and throwing himself into a spin. He suspected that the mech had been entertaining a similar thought, and held up his hands in a pacifying gesture. "They needed to know-"

"That was not the way they should have found out," Ironhide bellowed back, accelerating to an even more reckless speed on the empty road.

That tone on anyone else might have worked, but Lennox had seen and survived too many of his guardian's moods to be phased. "Sam and Mikaela were almost crushed, and we can't just be put together again like you guys can. They deserved to know why they almost died, just like Bumblebee and the Autobots deserve to know why the war is over."

Ironhide knew and agreed with that. The feeling wasn't particularly deep down, either. Anger was the easy emotion to have right now, but it wasn't appropriate. His wipers twitched in a proxy headshake, the growl of his engine softening as he coasted back towards a legal speed.

"It should have been in his way," he finally uttered, the words stiff.

Lennox couldn't suppress a small, bitter smile at that. "Ironhide, his way was for nobody to find out ever."

"True."

They drove on in silence for twenty miles, but without any of the tension that they had set out with. Optimus was just coming into close-sensor range with the spacebridge, Wheeljack and Starscream. A fine ending to a nightmarish day in Ironhide's mind. Since the declaration of peace, all three Seekers had been peaceful but no less caustic, which made their arrangement to life off-Based wholly agreeable. Starscream had been keen to get onto the Ark and back into space, diving into the spacebridge project without hesitation. He had turned out to be the first mech to demand a schedule that Wheeljack's obsessive enthusiasm had struggled to keep up with.

Ironhide tempered his speed further to allow the rest of the convoy to catch up. They had planned to arrive at the site together. He opened his glovebox, which he'd been chilling for the last few minutes, and offered the soda can inside to Lennox. It was an apology that Lennox accepted just as quietly.

The mech sighed a little through his vents, abruptly feeling his age. "Optimus, self-sacrificing glitch that he is, has been ready to die for the Autobots for centuries," he mused aloud, frustration and admiration clear in his voice.

Lennox nodded a little, unsurprised. Their Commander had died protecting a human he'd known for a comparative blink in time, and before that had order Sam to use his spark to destroy the Cube – and thus himself. "Yeah, but, this is a lot harder than just dying. This is living with a sacrifice every single day. He's punishing himself by keeping it a secret."

"Stupid slagger things he should be punished," Ironhide groused, bristling at the ongoing grievance. "And it's not that nobody knows. This is one of the worst-kept secrets I've ever seen. You and Prowl knew as well as me and Ratchet from almost the beginning. Now, Sam, Mikaela and Bumblebee do too. The only thing it isn't is common knowledge."

"Do you think it should be?" It was a blunt question and had escaped before Lennox had thought it through, but it seemed an apt one.

"Not the specifics of it," Ironhide replied after a pause, his tone forcibly even. "But the bots should know that Megatron tore a strip in exchange for peace, and that it's left their Prime hurting. They'll work it out or they won't. Either way they'd gladly give the space and peace he needs, and be nothing but grateful and humbled."

Lennox absorbed that silently, his gaze fixed absently on the top of the can. He came back to himself with a sigh and drained the rest of it. "Are you going to tell him that 'Bee and the kids know?"

A beat passed as Ironhide thought. Finally: "No. Not yet, at least. That's not information that'll do him any good to know. They should tell him themselves if he doesn't figure it out on his own."

The soldier sat back and rested a hand behind his head, brows arched. "So we're going to go to Certa and do this recon' mission pretending that nothing's happened."

"That's what Optimus wants."

Lennox nodded a little. "I'll talk to them. Say to keep quiet about it."

"I've already communicated as much to Bumblebee," Ironhide assured, his scanners flicking back briefly to touch upon the scout to make sure he was alright. "I've left it to him to discuss this with his charges."

A silent minute dragged by. Lennox finally scrubbed a hand across his face with a low sound. "This is gonna go swell."

Ironhide rumbled a low agreement. "If Starscream acts up, it'll be slagging perfect."

* * *

The atmosphere inside the Camero was a thick mixture of shock and dismay. Mikaela and Bumblebee were silently introspective in contrast to Sam's nervous energy and false-start sentences, their minds cast back to last year. At the celebration of the new peace, Optimus had approached Mikaela with questions that had since continued to disturb her, and Bumblebee could not bring his processor away from the memory of Ironhide punching the concrete in the Yard with helpless, agonised rage. These events suddenly made sense, but the understanding brought no comfort.

Bumblebee in particular felt lower than slag right now for him earlier anger towards Prime. It had left him skulking at the back of the convoy, Ratchet leading and the other two mech somewhere ahead. There was no questioning leaving them to their space.

"That bastard." Sam wanted to kick something, but thought better of it. Instead he folded his arms tightly, hands fisted against his ribs. "We've gotta do something. Hunt Megatron down and make him pay."

Bumblebee warbled a low sound, viscerally agreeing but knowing better. "We cannot, Sam. Megatron is long gone, and even if we could find him, to fight would be to instigate another war."

"And the reason Optimus did this was to stop war and save lives," Mikaela added quietly, moving one hand to touch her partner's arm.

Sam sighed beneath her touch, a hard and violent sound. He curled forwards to rest his elbows on his knees, hands moving into his hair and gripping. "It wasn't… It wasn't enough for Megatron to just kill him."

"Megatron has always wished to destroy Prime," Bumblebee agreed, selecting his words carefully. He'd been thinking on this returning back out of the woods into the clearing where Ratchet had been waiting. "And for everything he's done for us, we cannot now allow this to destroy him. We will not see Prime destroyed by a left wound."

"Absolutely," Sam announced decidedly, bringing a fist into his palm. "Whatever he needs, man. Support and understanding and all that. Anything."

"I think," Bumblebee began, pitching his voice carefully towards both teens, "that the best we can do for now is to pretend that we do not know."

"It's not healthy for him to suppress this," Mikaela replied quickly, her features hardening with concern. "Last night was a perfect example of why this can't be ignored."

Clouds covered the sun and the inside of the Camero turned suddenly, strangely bleak. Bumblebee moved in closer to the personnel truck in front of them. "Ratchet and Ironhide have been managing, this, for a year now, and feel that we should maintain a pretence of ignorance for the time being." He went on before either of them could vocalise the protests they were starting. "The truth must and will come out, but it should be at Prime's choosing. He deserves that much."

Silence stretched out inside the car. One mile. Four. Finally, Sam gathered the courage to ask the persisting question. "How does that even work for you guys with-"

"Sam," Bumblebee broke in flatly, "that is not something I'm prepared to speculate on nor explain at this point."

Sam sank a little in the seat, murmuring an apology and 'of course'. Mikaela took and squeezed his hand with a sympathetic smile, conveying that it was a question she'd also been wondering. Prime's question about human sex, how someone could permit another to breach their body, felt raw in her mind all over again.

She'd never shared that conversation, and suddenly felt that Optimus had been trying to tell her then in the woods, numb with High Grade and away from his soldiers. Wanted her to figure it out and to offer some reassurance and comfort. Guilt swamped her body, tightening her chest and twisting her stomach. She suspected that that was a feeling they'd all be living with for some time now.

* * *

_Thank you for reading. Any and every kind of review would be wonderful._


	4. Chapter 4

Loom

_Chapter Four_

* * *

Optimus reached the start of the rise of the volcano a little after sunrise, and Ironhide had not contacted him across the bond since he'd left the campsite five hours ago. There had been a greater sense of presence then normal, a comforting and reassuring warmth that was always there after a flux. No words though, which Optimus was grateful to his sparkmate for. When memories of the 'treaty' burned, he needed to retreat into himself for a time.

He wasn't alone on the volcano today, he knew, and was surprised to find Starscream waiting for him at the end of the crudely cut road. The Seeker approached whilst he was transforming, and Optimus found himself handed a cube of energon beneath a cool, scrutinizing gaze. It wasn't the first time he'd felt like Starscream was seeing straight through him. The first time had been not far from where they now stood.

"Where's your entourage?" The Seeker's tone was even and unreadable, optics flickering past his shoulder demonstrably.

Optimus drained the cube in one draw, having not realised he'd needed it. The aftermath of the flux, he realized with a heavy exhale he hadn't intended. "I went on ahead. They'll arrive in a few hours."

A slow nod before Starscream folded his arms and began walking, leading them up towards the spacebridge. He let the silence draw out whilst he took stock of the heat from the taller mech's vents, too great from just a drive, and the telling twitches of the discs on his helm. "Looking to brood in solitude, were you?" he called back without a glance, flaring his plates minutely to better feel the wind chasing around the mountainside.

His first instinct ought to have been to bristle at the remark, but Optimus sensed the genuine inquiry beneath the tart words. Starscream often gave the impression of sneering ignorance, but he saw more than he ever gave away. The question was not loaded with barbs, but with an invitation to speak. Because he understood better than most.

"Did any of the other Decepticons ever know?" he found himself asking, forcing himself to look at the Seeker's face in profile. "About you and Megatron?"

The airbrake flaps on Starscream's wings flared in a kind of shrug though his pace didn't break. "Probably. But no one tried to blackmail me with it." A smirk, directed at something unseen in the distance. "Including Megatron."

Optimus nodded a little, absorbing the honest and unaffected reply. It was a strangeness to perceive Starscream as a source of advice and a confidant if he elected to speak. But he was the only other he knew who had experienced that particular kind of violence that had left a scar unlike any other in this war. At the whims of the same mech, no less. And Starscream didn't look at him any differently for knowing. No sympathy, guilt or even compassion. Everyone else who did know seemed to soften their optics and actions around him. It was a subtle and frustrating reminder that something about him had changed.

Around a curved thicket of pine trees they would come into sight of the 'bridge, and as Prime seemed trapped on the cusp of speaking, Starscream stopped before they were exposed. He stopped the taller mech with a touch to his arm as he went to pass. "Someone's found out?"

Optimus glanced back down the track to confirm with his optics what his sensors had told him – that they were alone. He found that he couldn't look back right away, not wishing to betray just how deeply last night had affected him. "No, just that something's wrong. I don't believe they know what."

Starscream frowned and dragged his claws across the bright armour as he withdrew his hand, summoning his azure gaze back. "How?"

Optimus shook his head a little as his processor saw fit to remind him, replaying the moments when coherency had returned. Ironhide holding him down and close, expression lined more with anxiety than normal after a flux. Bumblebee watching him with weapons ready, having obviously been attacked by him. Ratchet low and steady, warding the NEST soldiers back. Sam and Mikaela brightly pale against the trees from where he'd almost crushed them. He couldn't remember anything before – just tangled feelings and an urgent need to escape.

"Bad flux," he finally uttered, his spark tightening at how succinctly he could convey what had been tormenting him for hours.

"Ah," Starscream drawled with a flex of his wings, consciously looking past the mech to the horizon and the approaching convoy. The corners of his mouth eased up in a cruel smile. "And here I thought you'd swallowed enough of your pride to tell someone."

Optimus jerked his optics to the Seeker as if he'd been shot, bright and narrowed. "What does my pride have to do with anything?"

Starscream met his stare with arched optical ridges, his mouth still gently twisted. "The reason you've been so adamant on keeping this from them, whether or not it affected how you moved past it, is what they will think of you," he explained, as if to a child.

The Seeker was deliberately antagonising him now, Optimus was certain, and his frame stiffened. "How dare you-"

"Shame has its roots in pride, Prime," Starscream cut in lightly, folding his arms and jutting his chin up at the other mech. "And as much as you say you're not better than any other mech, you know that you are. That you have to be. That you're Prime the symbol first and Optimus the fragged second."

His fist had connected with Starscream's bare cheek before he realized he'd moved, sending the Seeker down where he was quickly pinned with one hand about his throat. The Decepticons that had stayed were all largely neutralised, certainly no significant threat to an Autobot, but Starscream didn't even put up that much resistance. He lay compliant and smiling thinly in Optimus's shadow, satisfied with the response. "Not so much the helpless victim, are you?"

The shameless expression on the mech's face alone excused Optimus from apologizing as he withdraw and stood, dentals gritted behind the mask and optics closed. He heard Starscream get to his feet with dry crunches from the earth and a mechanical whine, finally firing a blast through his vents to dispel the stones and dirt that had worked inside.

"They've seen you injured before." Optimus opened his optics and found crimson ones settled on him calmly, narrowed in thought. Starscream shook his head a little and turned, moving back towards the spacebridge at a slow pace. "Primus, they've seen your corpse."

Unseen, Optimus brushed a hand across his optics before straightening and falling back into step. "This wasn't like any other wound, Starscream." What had meant to sound irritated merely came out as tired.

A short snarl from his vents and Starscream stopped dead, not turning to face him. "Oh yes – because you aren't –supposed- to recover from it."

The sneer was audible, and Optimus glanced over the Seeker's face in profile. His expression was rigidly controlled, optics narrowed and mouth a thin line. It only took four seconds of silence for Starscream to continue on, though he didn't turn and didn't look back.

"There's no heroic nobility in it, no way to romanticise those wounds as just another part of the grand struggle. This was baser, simpler than throwing yourself into the path of a cannon to save an Autobot. This wasn't even about the war, Prime. This was about you and him, and you've kept it like that by keeping it from the very ones you did it –for-. Let them suffer with you!" he shouted, his voice taking on the shrieking quality that came from dark fervour. "If the agony is more in the secrecy than in the act, then pride be damned – let them know it. Make it about them because you did it for them."

He should have shot him at least eight times over during that speech, delivered with back turned and voice sharply unforgiving. As before, though, as during the last time they'd spoken this way, Optimus tempered himself. Starscream's experience privileged him to boldness. Though he was acerbic, he was also direct, and it was almost a refreshing change to have this topic spoken about without caution, but with outright disrespect and near-cruelty. There was none of the tentativeness he'd come to feel suffocated by, none of the anxious concerns. No fragility. They spoke like two soldiers who had been experiencing the horrors of war since before this planet bore life, unflinchingly and unapologetically.

And Starscream was right. Usually was on this topic. It was a difficult thing to admit, but something Optimus had come to accept, though he paused on the thought now. He considered the Seeker's turned back anew, taking in the prickling tension boiling beneath the authoritative righteousness. There was no way that Starscream cared about him or his situation enough to warrant such a potent emotional reaction. The other mech had been insightful on this topic, yes, but not detached – he was clearly still hurting, no matter how adamantly he'd deny it.

He was reliving his experience through him, Optimus realised with sudden and jarring clarity, likely to the detriment of them both. Whether the Seeker realized that or not was another matter. The revelation that Starscream's past was nowhere near as resolved as he liked to profess somehow lessened the knot around his spark. It was a worthwhile distraction, and a revealing one.

Feeling an expanding wave of sadness bordering on pity, he approached the shorter mech and went to place a hand on his shoulder. He froze when Starscream turned, withdrawing his hand.

Optics glowing darkly around crystalline pupils of crimson, Starscream cocked his head. "What is it you so fear from them?"

"Not rejection, Starscream," he began slowly, feeling out the words as he spoke. It felt too much like arrogance on his glossa, but it was the distilled truth. "I fear for them. For their upset."

Nothing for a moment and then Starscream sneered, but the expression was so exaggerated and put upon that it looked more like a bad mask than an emotion. "For what? You not having done it centuries ago and saving half our race?"

Optimus gritted his dentals to temper down a reaction, his fist still warm from where he had made contact already. A frightened turbofox bites, but not because it is hungry, he reminded himself. "For doing such a crude and deplorable thing for them," he murmured, finding it a conscious effort to keep his optics up. When the parts around Stascream's optics shifted, tightened, he took a step forward to bring certainty to his words.

He cast his mind back to the many talks he'd had with Ratchet – some quiet, others less so. Vocalising was a means of taking ownership of words that would easily rule. "Though the, blame for this lies with Megatron, I would not wish to see them in the grief and anxiety I have brought upon those who already know. I do not wish to be treated differently."

Starscream folded his arms, mouth still curved. "You want them to act like nothing happened, and that you ended the Great War with something as innocuous as an arm wrestle?"

A beat and a sigh. Optimus made a point not to mutter his response. "Yes."

"Even though," the Seeker went on, optics narrowing even further, "'something' did happen."

Patience, Optimus reminded himself with a quiet exhale. There had to be a point to this pedantry. "Unfortunately."

Starscream made a small gesture with his hand, which was somehow condescending in itself. "But they're getting suspicious now because you can't act normal because something did happen and it does warrant concern from Ironhide and the medic." He held up his hand with a smirk when Optimus, obviously reaching the threshold of irritation, tried to interject. "Just getting the facts straight, Prime."

He didn't know what he had been expecting when he found Starscream waiting for him, but this wasn't it. Abandoning the notion of finding some kind of peace with what had happened last night for the time being, he nodded towards the hidden spacebridge and began walking. "Come on – we're wasting time."

The Seeker turned on the spot to track him with his optics, but didn't make any move to ascend the path. "They're still an hour away." When Optimus didn't stop, he folded his arms and tipped his helm back to put his face to the sky, optics shuttered. Autobots could be so stupid, sometimes. It was no wonder that the Prime was turning to a Decepticon for help with this ugly topic. He had a thorough and appreciative understanding of many ugly topics.

Starscream spoke to the wind, his voice strong and flat. "Insipid as the Autobots are, they're not sparklings. Every one of them has done something that could rival a Decepticon, kept them out of recharge sometimes. No one and nothing stays pristine in war."

Optimus stopped less than forty yards from the Seeker and turned fractionally, looking back with narrowed optics. Starscream had always been a challenge to understand, and impossible to predict. "What's your point?"

"They can handle it," Starscream replied, taking long strides to come alongside the taller mech and then another to put himself ahead on the track. "And if they can't it's their own fragging problem."

A grimace behind the mask, frustrated by Starscream insistence of making it all seem 'easy'. "Ironhide and Ratchet-"

"Saw the wounds, probably still leaking," Starscream jumped in quickly, his gaze steady. They held a shared silence for a few seconds, some unspoken communication, before the Seeker blinked and looked away. "That makes it too real." He started back along the road, leaving Optimus to follow.

"I can't announce it."

Starscream paused at the statement, the tone edged with a pained refusal around a more mocking tone at the absurdity of the idea. He continued walking when Optimus fell into step alongside him, optics raised towards the now-visible spacebridge and their means of getting off this planet for a time.

"Not all of it, obviously, but that it was… personal," Starscream uttered at last, sending a short comm. burst up to Wheeljack to inform him of their approach. Optimus remained pensively silent, the sounds of their footsteps on the gritty terrain unnaturally loud. He sighed a short sound to draw azure optics to him, and he met the questioning gaze without sympathy. "You need to figure something out soon, because this isn't working."

* * *

_Like the last time Starscream and Optimus spoke, getting their conversation right has been like pulling teeth. Thanks for your patience, and I hope you enjoyed it now that it's finally up._


	5. Chapter 5

A shorter update than I would have liked to get this fic going again. :)

* * *

Loom

_Chapter 5  
_

* * *

After what had happened in the woods, the convoy's arrival at the top of the mountain was disturbingly anticlimactic. Sam found himself holding his breath as the Camero rolled to a stop, only releasing it when he got out to let Bumblebee transform and found Mikaela taking his hand.

Optimus was stood with his back to them, all the attention in his tall frame directed towards a mech that few of the humans had seen. Wheeljack, though not shy, had developed a paranoia of stepping on the infinitely breakable locals through sheer absent-mindedness, and thus avoided them wherever possible. His head-fins were currently as bright as his optics as he spoke to the Prime, his hands rolling and tumbling in emphatic description.

A blast of hot air that blew the loose earth up broke the teens' stares, their hands coming to shield their eyes at the same time as Bumblebee began squawking clicks to tell Starscream to knock it off. The Seeker breezed overhead in bipedal form, hovering through the use of his pede-thrusters to make small adjustments by hand to the space bridge's crude frame. He took absolutely no notice of anything on the ground.

Ironhide came to stand over them as a physical shield, crouching to cover them despite his initial urge to simply tell Starscream to frag off. Sharp optics looked between both humans, reading their vitals against their expressions to discern their emotional states. Finally, he uttered flatly, "We'll be going up inside the hour. The Ark's still got its combat armour in place, so the 'bridge needs calibrating."

Sam nodded vaguely, his attention clearly elsewhere. "Is Optimus alright?"

The dark mech smiled a little at the blunt, unapologetic concern, though his spark also sank for the same reason. It was going to be nigh-impossible to keep Optimus from discovering that the children had learnt the truth with the way they flaunted their emotions. "He's fine, and you'd do well not to keep asking after his welfare when he is close."

"Yeah, yeah, right," Sam agreed quickly, hands coming up in the gesture of surrender-coloured apology that Ironhide often inspired. "It just that, with how he left, we thought he'd be, y'know, upset."

Glancing to the tall mech and finding him walking with Wheeljack to the far side of the 'bridge, Ironhide rumbled softly. "Perhaps, but he's in front of subordinates now. Like complaints, personal upsets are only, if ever, shown up the chain of command – never down."

Mikaela folded her arms with low shoulders, swallowing something that hurt. The last time she had been in a forest with Optimus had been a year ago, and the memory had been plaguing her since their eavesdropping in the bracken. He hadn't been himself then, either: unhindered enough from a copious amount of High Grade to ask strange, intimate questions without any kind of context. And his optics had seemed so sad and weary, fixed on her with something she now knew was a need to understand. She knew from the Autobots that he was an embodiment of their god, an onus on him that had then, suddenly, seemed crushing.

"Is that a Prime thing?" she asked quietly, looking back to Ironhide's spiralling optics.

"That's an army thing," Lennox interjected, moving around a large splayed pede to stand alongside them. Above them Ironhide straightened, though kept an audio on the humans.

Before the soldier could go on, Starscream landed dangerously close with a thud. Ignoring Ironhide's glare, the Seeker flicked a gesturing hand to the humans. "I need to scan the fleshies before they can go through the bridge."

"Humans," the soldier replied, bolstered by his guardian's presence to showing absolutely no intimidation where the Seeker was concerned. Starscream had stayed away from the Base after being repaired for Megatron's parting gift, and his sharp visage still put the majority of those he met on edge. But there was no desire to fight left in him now. Away from Megatron, he had no one to undermine or better in acts of cruelty.

To the correction Starscream sneered, then his eyes flashed in mirth before he swung an extended arm onto them as if aiming a weapon. They didn't dodge, frozen in place until the watery blue light of a scanner fell across them from the Seeker's wrist, at which Lennox rolled his eyes and the teens glared.

"There. Now, I'm fairly certain that you won't liquidate inside your flesh sacks during transit." He turned his back on them with a smirk when he was finished, returning to the controls with the data. Though he wasn't laughing aloud, it was clear that he was cackling internally.

Sam shook his head, jaw clenched. "Peace or not, I still hate him."

Ironhide grumbled a note of agreement before rising smoothly to step over their heads, crossing the dirt to Optimus. The tall mech seemed to sense his approach, excusing himself from Wheeljack and waiting in place whilst the scientist convened with Starscream at the 'bridge controls. Optimus's helm was dipped, his posture stiff and almost hesitant.

When Ironhide came to stand before him, his hydraulics sighed with weary defeat. "I'm sorry, Ironhide. I should not-"

The Prime cut himself off when the other mech held up a hand, his gaze steady. "I think there've been enough apologies for one lifetime, so let's stop it," he uttered firmly, though not unkindly. "You stop apologizing to me for hurting, and I'll stop apologizing to you for caring. It just is."

A beat as Optimus absorbed that, brushing the bond for a moment to check the assertion against the mech's mood, and he smiled a little upon finding both resolve and relief. This was a trap they'd both ensnared themselves in, too anxious about how it might be interpreted by the other to escape from. Finally he touched a hand to the dark mech's arm, conveying more complexity than words alone could through that contact and a flare in his energy field. Ironhide answered him in kind, the hard line of his mouth softening.

Regaining himself, Optimus looked past Ironhide to where the humans where making a point not to watch them. "There is still one apology that I must make," he breathed, stepping aside his sparkmate at his grunt of agreement and crossing the ground in cautious strides.

The earth was dry and shifted about his pedes when he moved to one knee, exchanging a glance with Lennox before the soldier nodded and jogged to Ironhide, leaving him alone with the teens. Forever the children, in his mind, no matter how brave or insightful they proved themselves. They were too fragile to be thought of as anything less precious and in need of protection than younglings.

He offered his hands to them silently, feeling something ease in his chassis when they climbed into his palms without hesitation. Raising them closer to his optic level, faceplate drawn back to display sincerity, he spoke from the spark. "Sam, Mikaela, I cannot apologise enough for what happened, and indeed what almost happened last night. Are you both alright?"

To his surprise they both exchanged a glance before nodding rapidly. This hadn't been what he'd expected.

It was Mikaela who spoke first, her brow drawn with concern. "We're fine. Yeah, of course, Optimus. We're just worried about you."

Before the mech could speak, Sam took Mikaela's hand and went on: "And you really don't have to apologise. I mean, it makes sense for you to have nightmares sometimes."

Optimus felt his spark pulse a cold burst, every part of him going complete still for long seconds. He wished he'd left his faceplate on, as to extend it now as he so wanted would be dangerously telling. With great control, he flicked his optics across the two humans before finally, flatly, murmuring, "Really." It was neither a question nor a statement, intended wholly to get them past this moment and for them to reveal what they suspected, or even knew.

Sam didn't miss the reaction his statement had garnered, and felt Mikaela squeeze his hand with a sidelong look of astonished horror. Clearing his throat, he forced his voice to come out almost casually assured. "Yeah. It's like, ah, PTSD, isn't it? You may be the supreme commander of the Autobots, but you're still a, uh, mech. You've still seen stuff that maybe upsets you sometimes, and I know how bad nightmares can be." He managed a short burst of laughter that sounded too strained to his ears. "I don't imagine that having us crawling around inside your cab like vermin at the time helped."

Optimus watched him intently, trying to pick apart the underlying meaning in those words. It came down to the simple fact that either Sam was telling the truth or lying to appease him. If it was the former, they had forgiven his violent transgressions that had endangered their lives with what Sam saw as a feasible explanation for his behaviour. If it was the latter, someone told them and Sam was trying to protect his feelings. Ultimately he didn't know what to say, and so simply hummed a low note in agreement to the last statement. "It was… startling."

Nodding animatedly again, Sam looked between Mikaela and the blue optics fixed on them. "But, bottom line is that you're okay and we're okay. And we don't blame you. It'd be nice if it never happened again, but we don't think it's your fault."

_They can handle it_. The thought in Starscream's voice came entirely unbidden, and Optimus smiled a little at the realisation. For now, he decided, it didn't matter either way what they knew or believed to know. They were unharmed, did not fear him, and were content to move on from the incident. To want anything more than that was to wallow, and he was done punishing himself.

"Thank you."

Sam smiled back, the tension dropping out of his shoulders leaving his posture relaxed. "No problem, Big Guy."

"When you're quite done playing with the local insects," Starscream's scathing tone cut in, arch with irritation reflected in his features as he stood at the spacebridge's controls. "We're ready to 'bridge. On the platform, Prime. It is your ship, after all."


End file.
